1 Chronicles 19: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

When the Ammonite king Nahash dies, David sends messengers to comfort his son Hanun, but Hanun's officials convince him the men are spies, so he humiliates them and sends them home. The Ammonites hire chariots and troops from Aramean kingdoms, and Joab and Abishai split Israel's army to fight on two fronts and drive both forces back. The Arameans regroup with reinforcements from beyond the Euphrates, David crosses the Jordan and defeats them, and they make peace with him and stop helping the Ammonites.

Claim by Claim

1. 19:1
   • After these events, Nahash king of the Ammonites died.
   • Nahash's son became king in his place.
2. 19:2
   • David said he would show loyal kindness to Hanun son of Nahash.
   • David said the reason was that Hanun's father had shown kindness to David.
   • David sent messengers to console Hanun concerning his father.
   • David's servants came into the land of the Ammonites, to Hanun, to console him.
3. 19:3
   • The princes of the Ammonites spoke to Hanun.
   • The princes asked Hanun whether he thought David was honoring his father by sending comforters to him.
   • The princes asked whether David's servants had rather come to search out the land, to overthrow it, and to spy it out.
4. 19:4
   • Hanun seized David's servants.
   • Hanun shaved them.
   • Hanun cut their garments off in the middle, up to their hips.
   • Hanun sent them away.
5. 19:5
   • Men went and reported to David what had been done to the men.
   • David sent messengers to meet them.
   • The men were greatly humiliated.
   • The king told them to stay in Jericho until their beards grew back.
   • The king told them to return after their beards grew back.
6. 19:6
   • The Ammonites saw that they had made themselves a stench to David.
   • Hanun and the Ammonites sent a thousand talents of silver.
   • The silver was to hire chariots and horsemen for themselves.
   • The hiring was from Aram-naharaim, from Aram-maacah, and from Zobah.
7. 19:7
   • They hired thirty-two thousand chariots for themselves.
   • They hired the king of Maacah and his people.
   • Those hired came and camped before Medeba.
   • The Ammonites gathered from their cities.
   • The Ammonites came out to battle.
8. 19:8
   • David heard of it.
   • David sent Joab and the whole army of mighty men.
9. 19:9
   • The Ammonites came out.
   • The Ammonites drew up for battle at the entrance of the city.
   • The kings who had come were by themselves in the open field.
10. 19:10
    • Joab saw that the battle line was against him in front and behind.
    • Joab chose from all the choice men of Israel.
    • Joab drew them up against the Arameans.
11. 19:11
    • Joab put the rest of the people under the command of his brother Abishai.
    • They drew up against the Ammonites.
12. 19:12
    • Joab said that if the Arameans were too strong for him, Abishai would rescue him.
    • Joab said that if the Ammonites were too strong for Abishai, he would rescue Abishai.
13. 19:13
    • Joab told Abishai to be strong.
    • Joab said they should show themselves strong for their people and for the cities of their God.
    • Joab said the LORD would do what is good in his sight.
14. 19:14
    • Joab and the people with him advanced to battle before the Arameans.
    • The Arameans fled before Joab.
15. 19:15
    • The Ammonites saw that the Arameans had fled.
    • The Ammonites also fled before Abishai, Joab's brother.
    • The Ammonites entered the city.
    • Joab came to Jerusalem.
16. 19:16
    • The Arameans saw that they had been defeated before Israel.
    • The Arameans sent messengers.
    • The Arameans brought out the Arameans who were beyond the River.
    • Shophach, the commander of Hadadezer's army, was at their head.
17. 19:17
    • David was told of it.
    • David gathered all Israel.
    • David crossed the Jordan.
    • David came upon them.
    • David drew up in battle order against them.
    • David drew up for battle against the Arameans.
    • The Arameans fought with David.
18. 19:18
    • The Arameans fled before Israel.
    • David killed seven thousand Aramean charioteers.
    • David killed forty thousand Aramean foot soldiers.
    • David killed Shophach, the commander of the army.
19. 19:19
    • The servants of Hadadezer saw that they had been defeated before Israel.
    • They made peace with David.
    • They became David's servants.
    • The Arameans were unwilling to help the Ammonites any more.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

19:1

The Ammonites were a people living east of the Jordan River, in what is now Jordan, long-standing neighbors and frequent enemies of Israel. Nahash had been their king for decades; he appears earlier as the besieger of Jabesh-gilead in 1 Samuel 11.

19:2

The kindness Nahash showed David is not described anywhere in the record; it may date from the years when David was a fugitive from King Saul, who was Nahash's enemy. Messengers sent between rulers were formal envoys, and by the custom of the region their persons were protected, harming them was treated as an act of war.

19:3

"Princes" here means the king's chief advisers and nobles, not sons of the king.

19:4

A full beard was a mark of adult male standing; forcibly shaving a man was a deliberate humiliation, and a beard took months to regrow. Men wore a long tunic; cutting it off at the hips left the lower body exposed, since undergarments as we know them were not worn. Doing this to envoys insulted the king who sent them.

19:5

Jericho lay just west of the Jordan, the first Israelite town the returning men would reach. Staying there let them wait out of public sight rather than walk through the country in that state.

19:6

"Made themselves odious" in the King James is literally "made themselves a stench": they had made themselves hateful to David. A talent was a weight of roughly 75 pounds (34 kg), so a thousand talents of silver was an enormous sum, effectively a national treasury spent on mercenaries. "Mesopotamia" translates Aram-naharaim, "Aram of the two rivers," the region between the Euphrates and its tributaries. Aram-maacah and Zobah were Aramean kingdoms to the north of Israel, in modern Syria and Lebanon.

19:7

The number is unusually large; the parallel account in 2 Samuel 10:6 counts foot soldiers rather than chariots, and the Hebrew word for a military unit of a thousand can also mean a smaller company, so the size of these forces is disputed. Medeba was a town on the high plateau east of the Dead Sea.

19:8

Joab was David's nephew and the commander of his army. "The host of the mighty men" means the full army including the professional core of veteran soldiers who had served David since his outlaw years.

19:9

The city is Rabbah, the Ammonite capital, on the site of modern Amman. A walled city's gate was the one point where an army could form up with its back protected.

19:10

The King James "Syrians" renders Aram, the Aramean kingdoms of the north, hired as mercenaries. They are not the modern country of Syria, though the territory overlaps. Joab was caught between the Ammonites at the city gate in front and the hired Aramean force in the open country behind.

19:11

Abishai was Joab's brother, and like Joab a nephew of David and one of his senior commanders.

19:13

"The cities of our God" means the towns of Israel, understood as the land given to the people, rather than any particular sacred site.

19:16

"Beyond the river" in Hebrew usage means the far side of the Euphrates, the northern limit of Aramean territory. Hadadezer was king of Zobah, the most powerful of the Aramean states; Shophach was his commanding general.

19:17

The Jordan was the main river of the land. Crossing it meant David was taking the fight out of Israel and onto enemy ground.

19:18

The parallel account in 2 Samuel 10:18 gives seven hundred chariots rather than seven thousand chariot fighters; the two figures may count different things, or one may be a copying error in the transmitted text.

19:19

"Became his servants" means they became vassal states, retaining their own rulers but paying tribute to David and bound not to make war on him.